THE FUGITIVE

Taking a small break from the soullessness that is TRIAL OF A TIME LORD, I watched a few THE FUGITIVE episodes from season two now that Paramount restored the original soundtracks to them.

Some thoughts: Don't ever miss this series! Black and white has a nice eye saving shade to it. And black and white is still very cool.

MAN ON A CHARIOT: a man in a wheelchair who teaches college kids is sought out by Richard Kimble, quite by accident really, to help him. It transpires that a mock trial to prove Kimble's innocence is sprung and we see if Kimble will get acquitted after a second chance at a trial. All along we think the old man believes Kimble is actually guilty and will just try to get him off because he's conceited. Well, the epilog is one of the most stirring emotionally driven scenes ever. And the original music is what drives a great many of the scenes or at least half way does.

NEMESIS: Kurt Russel plays Phillip Gerard Jr. who stows away in a station wagon that Kimble steals to get away...now this routine type of episode which has random events occur explains much about Kimble and Gerard and their relationships to others. Brilliant. It also has some fun with the fact that the boy seems to be telling a lie when he is telling Slim Pickens, an age old actor playing a trapper, that Kimble is a criminal. Kimble, laying onthe ground at the campsite smiles, acting like the boy is just telling tall tales, mad at "dad", "The next thing you know he'll be telling you that I'm a murderer." ANd when Kimble forces Phil Jr to give up matches, "Didn't your father ever tell you not to play with matches?" ANd then later Phil, who is saved from an animal trap by Kimble, who came back and risked getting caught, has to decide whether or not to point his own dad in the direction Kimble went after promising Kimble he wouldn't do it...what do you think he does? It might surprise you. It is also interesting that Gerard answers the question or the statement "You said he's guilty" with " A jury said he's guilty." The law is the law to him and there's no arguing with that--at least not until the last episode when Gerard's belief in the law is proven wrong some of the time and changes forever.

ESCAPE INTO BLACK: The lady who used to play Archie Bunker's neighbor Irene plays a nurse named Ruskin who helps Kimble...as many have...but this time Kimble is in an accident saving someone...and loses his memory. Now here, another routine stock plot becomes a chance to explore Kimble, Gerard, and two people... a black Doctor and the nurse and all their outlooks on things. The black Doctor (played by the black man who played Mark in IRONSIDE--another great show) believes Kimble betrayed his profession and shouldn't be given any breaks no matter what he says. He's even willing to lie to Kimble to get Kimble to turn himself in. The nurse instinctively knows he's innocent and goes on a hunt to find...the one armed man, whom Kimble was in the area having heard a one armed man was there...the one he spotted ONCE in season one after the intial spotting. Unlike the somewhat boring movie with Harrison Ford, this show does not/did not present the actual set up in the first episode. Instead, rather interestingly and different for a show at that time (the 60s), we get flashbacks in various episodes of the fight with his wife before the murder, the drive through town and the stop at a lake where he sees a boy fishing, the spotting of the one armed man running from his house and the discovery of his wife's body as well as the trial and conviction, the train crash. This episode gives us some of that as Kimble's memory starts to slowly come back. At one point before this, he truly believes he did kill his wife. He also calls Gerard to turn himself in in a very amusing/tense scene ("Is this some kind of joke?" and "I've heard you've bene looking for me for some time.") A GREAT EPISODE with truly outstanding music some of it used from TWILIGHT ZONE and maybe OUTER LIMITS and the FUGITIVE backtracks.

CRY UNCLE: this episode features a very young Ron Howard, however the acting award should go Donald Losby as the young teen who wants to become a runaway thanks to both his parent's deaths and his dead beat uncle Pat, whom Kimble impersonates thanks to being in a jam...forced to by the kids at an orphange. The boy thinks no one does anything for anyone else and Kmble is forced by his own goodness to help this kid...the way he tells him others have helped him in the past...by bringing the kid back despite the fact that the kid alread called the police to the orphanage and told them that Kimble was not his Uncle Pat. Of course someone else steps in and saves the day but what a message! Another GREAT episode. Truly touching and without being overly sappy. If anyone cares this actor also played Davey when Will went back to Earth in RETURN FROM OUTER SPACE on LOST IN SPACE.